


To Your Doorstep

by wednesday



Series: WDLF [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, POV Fenris (Dragon Age), Post-Game(s), This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 13:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19063828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/pseuds/wednesday
Summary: Fenris and Anders after the fight at the Gallows.





	To Your Doorstep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis1000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/gifts).



Fenris is covered in congealing blood and other things he’d prefer not to think about. By the time he gets to his mansion, ash from the fires has joined the drying blood; all of it itches and irritates his skin and the traces of magic make his marks flare in pain more than usual.

He feels thoroughly dirty because of everything that’s happened today. The smoke hanging over the city burns his throat and blunt anger smoulders between his lungs. Some of the blood pooling in his gauntlets must be his own, from clenching his fists so hard he cut himself on the claws.

Two of his neighbours’ houses are in ruins – not much fire, but a few pieces of Chantry rubble have knocked them down like they were made of cards. Thick stone dust and smoke swirl in the hot air and conceal any traces of survivors. Fenris has no idea if anyone was living there, or if they stood empty.

On the far side of the courtyard someone is shouting for others to hurry.

Fenris holds his breath through the cloud of dust and takes shelter inside his own house that’s miraculously still standing. It’s quiet inside, but the stillness doesn’t make Fenris feel any better. A single step inside the foyer and he stops – at the bottom of the stairs sitting on the ground is Anders.

Fenris’ grip on his sword tightens until the bones in his palm start to ache. He isn’t sure he has enough strength left to lift his arms, but a sword in hand helps against that first moment of panic, at least.

“Mage.”

The abomination doesn’t answer and doesn’t move from slumping against the wall.

“If you’ve come to me, of all people, for help-- I’m not as merciful as Hawke. Nor as stupid.”  
That produces some sign of life. The mage blinks like he’s only just waking from a deep sleep, pale and listless.

“Hawke is--” he trails off, and Fenris doesn’t have the patience to care what the mage thinks of Hawke on a good day. Or what he thinks of anyone, really.

“Fleeing Kirkwall, if he has any sense at all. So am I,” Fenris adds meaningfully, to get the mage to leave. _So should you_ , he doesn’t say, because the mage shouldn’t even be alive. Once again he gets no answer.

A small cat, fur singed and white with dust, scurries across the room carefully staying out of reach of both of them. Fitting that it will inherit the house when Fenris is gone – if there’s one thing that this city will never lack it’s vermin.

Fenris walks towards the stairs, still wary of the mage. They’ve been here before, except it was Fenris on the ground and Anders following him home to heal his wounds whenever he thought Fenris was truly dangerously injured. It was easier to ignore what he is, then. Now Fenris has fire etched behind his eyelids.

“Hawke is wrong,” the mage says when there’s only a sword’s length of space left between them. “He doesn’t see what you see. That I’m a danger to everyone. My friends.” His voice is clear and melodious as always, but slower and less passioned.

“That has always been the case.”

“No, I-- Never mind.” The mage closes his eyes and for once doesn’t argue. Fenris considers him carefully for a few moments.

“You want me to kill you.” For all the times Fenris has wished someone would do just that, he now feels a measure of disgust at the mage foisting the task on him after Hawke refused to do it. Hawke would expect him to show mercy and the mage clearly expects otherwise. Fenris resents both of them for presuming to have a say in what he decides. Himself, too, for letting them.

“Want isn’t a word I’d use. It’s necessary.”

“Your judgement on what’s necessary is as trustworthy as expected from an abomination.”

The mage laughs bitterly. “Even now, when you’ve spent years killing slavers in this city, you still can’t understand why I had to do what I did.”

“How many Templars did you kill today? I don’t remember seeing you there when I was fighting the battles you started.” Fenris looks pointedly at the mage’s clothes, clean of blood and ash. He must have come here hours ago, immediately after Hawke sent him on his way. “All you did was get your precious mages killed for nothing.”

“It wasn’t for nothing!” Ah, the outrage that has been missing all this time.

“For your crimes,” Fenris says, trying to mask the way his arms faintly tremble with fatigue.

“So you admit they were innocent?” the mage asks, like he’s caught him in some contradiction.

“They proved themselves to be like every other mage before the end.” Yet Hawke still led Fenris to their defense. He might never forgive him that. “As did you. You made their choice for them. A hypocrite once again, no?”

The mage falls silent and Fenris doesn’t wait for him to regain his wits, instead he walks upstairs leaving new bloodstains on the already stained floor.

Inside his own room Fenris lets go of the sword at last. His hand refuses to cooperate at first after hours of holding on, of expecting every blow to be his last. Flakes of dried blood sprinkle the ground as his fingers straighten reluctantly.

He slumps against his desk, head hanging low and breathes for a minute, then two.

There’s a half finished bottle of wine within his reach. Fenris takes another deep breath and downs the wine – no use in wasting it. Next he takes two potions from the case he keeps by the bed. No need to hoard those, either.

He’s been teased and prodded too many times to count about not really having a life, but now there are suddenly a hundred things he wants to keep and doesn’t have the space to take with him. Trinkets that have no purpose but the memory of someone gifting them to him. Books he hasn’t finished and ones he hasn’t even started. Ones Hawke brought him, and Isabella, and Varric. Spare weapons he can’t possibly carry.

Fenris overturns a crate of knives and daggers and with them out falls a deck of cards. They’re-- Anders brought them one night, complaining that the set they were using was too worn. Donnic complained that-- Donnic might be dead, crushed by debris, or in a fire, or by the hand of some mad mage or Templar. Fenris doesn’t have the time to look for him, nor any way of knowing if he should. He may never know if Donnic yet lives, or anyone else he’s known in this city.

The embers in his chest have hollowed out his lungs and heart leaving only bitter fury. It’s familiar. The unexpected part is having had anything else where helpless anger now resides.

Fenris takes one last look at the room he will likely never see, picks up his sword and pack and takes the stairs down and away from it.

“Mage,” he says, halfway down the stairs. “Get up. I’m not waiting on you until an army of Templars besieges the city.”

“You can’t possibly want me to come with you.” The mage looks startled and, for the first time since this Void damned day began, alive again.

“I really don’t. And yet.”

“I don’t regret what I did.” It sounds like a challenge and like he thinks Fenris has suddenly forgotten what he is. Fenris doesn’t care to remind him his own words on the Chantry steps. The mage’s eyes shine in the colour of lyrium as he says it. Certainly the demon doesn’t regret a thing.

“Indeed. Now get up.”

“Fenris.” The mage reaches up and stops him with a hold on his wrist. Fenris tenses and looks down at him; they stare at each other for a long silent moment, the mage searching for something in his eyes. Fenris is about to shake off the mage’s hold, when the mage finally releases him without a word.

“Don’t worry, that’s why I’m coming with you – if you cannot find a way to get rid of your demon, I will kill you myself.”

“I’d-- rather you just do it now.”

“My heart bleeds for you.” Fenris walks towards the door and doesn’t bother repeating himself again. For a moment he wavers in indecision over which one of them is most a fool, but then he hears a rustle of feathers as the mage gets up to follow him.

Ah. It’s both of them, then.

  


   


End file.
